BookMachine kindly invited me to write about proofreading and copyediting for independent authors who've already gone live with their book.

In ​'Post-publication editing for self-publishing authors', I discuss why some authors make the decision to work with editorial professionals post-publication, and how we might support them, all the while taking 'a tone that focuses on solutions, not criticism'.

Freelance pricing, marketing, testing/tracking and terminologyThis article is a summary of what I learned along the way: the effects on my own business and how I responded.

For some of you, what follows will chime with your own experiences. If that's not the case, perhaps you'll be inspired to test some of the issues I discuss.

What I learned

Pricing: the debate around making one’s prices public is lively. For me, trialling going public has proved interesting but I still don’t have an answer

Marketing #1: good content marketing can happen in a bar or a pizzeria

Marketing #2: a hard-grafted marketing strategy can be time and money out the window if one’s schedule can’t accommodate the results

Testing/tracking: Data is good; more data is better

Terminology: I’m known as a specialist proofreader. I am one of those but I’m also a copyeditor and line editor

​1. Prices – to show or not to show
I went public with my pricing structure for one month in November. The results were interesting; my explanation was uncertain; my response, however, was unequivocal.

I’ve been tracking my new-client contact data for over a year, so I could compare some numbers. In November 2015, I received 25 requests from new clients to quote. In November 2016, it dropped to 14.
Of those who did get in contact, the number who became paying clients increased by 50%.

On the surface, that’s good news – lower contact numbers but a higher rate of conversions. Dig a little deeper, though, and there are a couple of problems:

Some of the people who were put off by the headline ballpark figure might have converted to excellent repeat clients if I’d had a chance to communicate with them and demonstrate the value of what I offer.

Some of the people would still have been put off by my price even if I’d had the opportunity to communicate with them. However, I would have been able to refer at least some of them to colleagues.

So why did the number drop? Sure, it could’ve been that the price was too high. And, yes, I have comparative data, but not much – comparing one month in 2015 with one in 2016 is interesting but hardly conclusive. November 2015 might just have been a fluke. And, anyway, the numbers aren’t exactly huge so it’s difficult to make any statistically significant deductions.

At the end of December 2016, I compared the new-client contact data with that from December 2015. This time, the figures were similar – two more in 2016. At first sight, this might imply that the public prices were an issue. But, again, I only have one year-on-year figure for comparison, which I don’t believe is enough to warrant anything more than a ‘Hmm, interesting. That’s worth keeping an eye on.’

Data from at least five previous years would have given me the confidence to make a statement one way or another. As it is, based on my experiment and limited data, I’m not prepared to conclude that public pricing is either beneficial or damaging.

Myresponse for my business: I removed my prices from my website. This is the approach I feel comfortable with at present, and I’ll continue as such until I have enough information to make an informed decision. I’ll continue to track my new contacts so that I can better understand the patterns of enquiry throughout the year.

2. Content marketing over gin and pizza
I plan to write more about content marketing (or adding value, as I prefer to call it) this year. There’s a section about it in Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business if you want to dig deeper. Here’s the thing – many of us think of content marketing in terms of blogs, booklets, tutorials and templates. In other words, stuff that can be read, watched and touched. In 2016, I was reminded that great content marketing – great value – is sometimes as simple as a conversation.

At the 2016 Society for Editors and Proofreaders’ annual conference in Aston, I made a new friend (Victoria Woodside) and caught up with an old one (Sophie Playle). I’d already spent several months thinking about what it is I actually do (see Section 5 below) and how I present it to potential clients. The language used to define editorial services is tangled. Editorial professionals don’t define proofreading, copyediting and line editing similarly, so why should our clients?

I was comfortable blogging about the confusion but I hadn’t managed to solve the conundrum for my own business. I was going round in circles. Victoria and Sophie came to my rescue – not in any kind of formal consultative manner, but just by giving me their time and sharing their expertise over gin and Fiorentinas. They told me how they defined their services and helped me to unpick my own. From those conversations, I found a way forward.

I doubt either woman would define her conversation with me as content marketing – yet it was. Both had valuable, useful stuff (knowledge, time and expertise) and shared it with me. Later it would put them both top of my mind when I was in need of people to refer specific clients to. One of those referrals turned into paid work.

And that’s really what good content marketing is – sharing useful, valuable stuff so that it puts you top of mind (or top of Google) when there’s a client in need of a solution. That client might come via a colleague, which means your fellow editorial pros are your customers too. Meeting and talking to colleagues, online and face-to-face, is great content marketing. Many of us do it without even realizing. And it costs nowt but time and effort. You just need to be a nice human being.

Myresponse for my business: This experience was a great lesson in just how far content marketing stretches. It was also a strong reminder that learning takes place in a range of environments. I already attend my Norfolk SfEP group meeting on a regular basis. I’m now committed to attending the annual meetings too – to speak (if I’m asked) and to listen to others speaking.
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Two conversations helped me align my business in action with my business in words. That alone made it worth the registration fee.

3. The hard graft and the full schedule
I’ve had an active marketing strategy in place since I set up my business back in 2006. It’s worked well for me. I have as much work as I can handle and am often booked up several months in advance … And there’s the rub.

Some clients will wait, but many won’t. To put so much time into marketing – all those booklets and guidelines and other bits and pieces of valuable stuff that I hope my indie authors will find useful – only to hear, ‘Sorry, I can’t wait that long,’ is frustrating. It feels like wasted effort.

I’m all for a referral – I can put a client in touch with the perfect specialist. Legal editor? I know one of those. Fluent French speaker or Italian translator? I’m friends with the former and related to the latter. How about a proofreader who also has experience of scientific indexing? Yep, I have a phone number.

The thing is this – it’s a busy week and I’m up to my neck in deadlines. I don’t have the capacity to be thinking about who would be the best person in my extensive network of experienced colleagues for this or that bit of proofreading or light editing. That’s time I should be using to earn a crust for me, not someone else.

As a result, from early 2015 I’d stopped actively recommending named colleagues for general proofreading or light-editing work. If an enquirer actively asked for a recommendation, I’d point them to a directory. If they asked for specialist help (e.g. legal, medical, scientific), only then would I recommend a named colleague.

All in all, I felt that a lot of hard-graft was generating a lot of missed opportunities and missed income.

Myresponse for my business: A trusted colleague whose company subs to experienced editors and proofreaders offered me a referral deal. I get a cut of any converted leads. This hasn’t replaced my specialist referral network; rather, it’s a two-pronged approach. Named specialist referrals earn me nothing, whereas more generalist referrals earn me a small passive income. Now I feel like my marketing’s working for me again, and for others too.

4. Data, data and more data
I talked above about the problem I encountered with not having enough data to make an informed decision on whether public pricing is good or bad for my business. Data limitations also became apparent when I introduced several contact forms on my website early in 2016. I was interested to learn whether clients preferred contact forms, email, texts or phone, and whether it was necessary to provide all of these options.
My initial observations were as follows:

Contact forms were far more popular than the other options. The results appeared striking: over 73%. Even direct email made up only 10% of all enquires in my test period. Hurrah for contact forms. Bah for email.

All of the options were used, though, so I cautioned about removing choice, even though there are experts who claim that publishing your email can lead to problems with privacy and spamming.

I was also concerned about the quantity of the data I was looking at. Hurrah for contact forms and bah for email? Really?

Myresponse for my business: I committed to continue my monitoring of new-client contact methods. I’m nearly a year down the line now so I have more data. Good job too. Now, my observations are as follows:

My contact forms are still popular, but I’m glad I was cautious about removing choice based on the initial test-period results. The numbers have changed because the short-term skew has been smoothed out. With more data, I can now say that contact forms are used by 52% of new enquirers and the direct-email option accounts for 35%. Hurrah for contact forms! And hurrah for email!

If I’d removed my email address based on a small amount of data, I’d have been responding incorrectly to my customers’ preferences.

5. More than a proofreader
Well into 2016, a couple of things had become blindingly obvious:

My client base had shifted dramatically in 10 years of freelancing. Back in the early days, I was almost exclusively a publisher’s proofreader (working mainly on social science monographs). A decade on, I’m almost exclusively an author’s proofreader (working mainly on fiction).

It’s not just who I do it for that’s changed, it’s also what I do. In fact, sometimes I’m proofreading. Often, though, I’m copyediting. Sometimes I’m line editing, too.

The definitions of proofreading, copyediting and line editing differ depending on whom you speak to. That makes things tricky for professionals, never mind clients.

I needed to rethink and tweak. I needed to find a way of defining my business such that it made sense to my primary client-base but didn’t harm my existing SEO. I didn’t want to damage the ‘proofreaderiness’ of my brand but I did want to reflect the breadth of my service.

Myresponse for my business: I wrote, I pondered, I talked to myself. Then I had a conversation with two friends (see Section 2 above). Clarity emerged from confusion. I redefined (and repriced) my service packages so that they reflect the reality of what I’m providing. I’m confident and clear about how my services are differentiated. More importantly, I’m no longer worrying about what my colleagues are doing, or what definitions they’re using. My friends gave me the confidence to carve out my own way of doing things.

Summing up
I hope you’ve enjoyed this personal review. I’m sure you’ve had many of your own ‘Hmm, that’s interesting’ moments over the past 12 months. Perhaps you’ve shared some of the same experiences but responded differently. No matter – there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to any of these issues. The important thing is that we use the review process as an opportunity to see not what we’ve done badly but what we can do better.

Are you thinking of switching careers and becoming a proofreader or copy-editor? I have 7 tips to help you decide whether it's right for you.

At the time of writing, I’ve had 5 requests in 5 days for advice on transitioning to a proofreading/copy-editing career.

​Self-reflection isn’t uncommon at this time of year – we use the time to think about what the future might bring and what changes we can make to achieve our life goals and business objectives. Here's a summary of the advice I offered my five enquirers based on the questions they asked.
​This brief article only scratches the surface, but I hope it gives those who are considering a new career some food for thought.
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1. Do I havethe right background?

​Probably! See how I answered that without knowing a thing about your educational and career experience?

​Here’s the thing – if you want to specialize in medical editing for publishers and you have a degree in economics, a rethink’s in order. Social science publishers, though? That’s more like it.

Ultimately, it’s about aligning your experience and skills with those who speak the same language.

My background education and work experience is in the social sciences. I don’t know medicine like my doctor pal, Jon. So if I’m proofreading a file that mentions both inulin and insulin (which Wikipedia tells me are both connected to sugar in some way or another!), I’m unlikely to have a clue about whether the mentions of either are correct. At best, I’ll be querying my heart out; at worst, I’ll fail to spot an error.

Give me a book on politics or social theory and it’s a different story. I know when those two little dots in Jürgen Habermas’s and Loïc Wacquant’s names have been omitted – I don’t have to look ’em up!

​So, yes, you do probably have the right background to enable you to transition to a proofreading or copy-editing career.

​Just make sure you focus (initially) on targeting clients to whom you have the best chance of offering an exemplary service – clients who’ll think you’re interesting and hireable because you’re comfortable with the language of their subject.

That doesn’t mean you have to specialize forever, or stay with the same specialization over the course of your career.

When I launched my editorial business, I worked almost exclusively for social science publishers. These days, I work mostly on fiction, specializing in proofreading and copy-editing for indie authors. A lot can change in a decade.
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2. Is training necessary and worthwhile?

​In a nutshell, yes. Why?

Professional training provides a confidence boost when you’re on track … and plugs the gaps when you aren’t.

Training is one way of helping potential clients to identify your professionalism. It’s therefore a great USP (unique selling point). I like knowing that my electrician learned how to do the job. I don’t let unqualified dentists near my teeth. My kid’s taught by people with an appropriate educational qualification. I think clients are more likely to think I’m a catch because I can demonstrate that I’ve invested in industry-recognized editorial training.

Training focuses your mind on the technical aspects of following a brief, marking up according to industry-recognized standards, and knowing when to change, query or leave well enough alone.

There’s more thanone way to mark up. Paper markup isn’t yet dead, but it’s not far off – some clients will want you to work in Word; others will prefer PDF; yet others specify another digital platform. Being able to work in the way that the client prefers is essential, otherwise you’re limiting your customer base. Furthermore, if you want to work as efficiently and effectively as possible, you’re advised to embrace a range of tech tools that combine traditional and contemporary skills. Training will help you prepare for these demands.

​Take advice from your national editorial society on the most appropriate training course. The list I’ve linked to includes organizations in Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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3. Where’s my market?

​Perhaps a better question is: Where isn’t my market? Most proofreading and copy-editing is done onscreen these days. Even traditional page-proof markup, using proof-correction symbols, is increasingly taking place in a digital environment. That means geography is not the barrier it once was.

Thirty years ago, an author from Colorado wouldn’t have hired me to proofread his crime thrillers – not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t find me. Now, thanks to Tim Berners-Lee, he can and he has.

If you live in Dublin, your market isn’t just Dublin.

If you live in Tromsø, your market isn’t just Tromsø.

I live in Panxworth (it’s a hamlet in Norfolk, England – even the satnav struggles to find me). If my market were limited to Panxworth, I’d be unemployed before breakfast.​

​If you live in Dublin, your market is people who want to work with someone who lives in Dublin, and people who want to work with someone who lives in Ireland, and people who don’t care where you live but believe you have the skills to solve their problems. Same kind of thing applies to the Tromsønian and the Panxwegian.

It’s not always about where you live or where your clients live, but whether you can find each other, and whether, once you have, you can instil a belief in those clients that you’re the right person for the job.
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4. Will the pay be enough to earn a living wage?

​This question gets rehashed over and over. There’s no quick answer. Here are some thoughts:

What do you need to earn? You can’t work out whether your freelance editorial business will be viable unless you know what your baseline is.

Rates vary within and between client sectors, and within and between countries. There isn’t a market rate, whatever anyone tells you. Instead, there’s what you need to earn, what you want to earn, how much time you have available to work for those earnings, and what the clients who can find you are prepared to pay. Somewhere in the midst of that is a little bit of paradise where all four align. Don’t expect paradise to land in your lap – it takes time.

Some editorial societies offer suggested minimum rates. These are guidelines not facts. They reflect neither the maximum that some clients will be prepared to pay, nor the minimum that some clients will hope to pay.

In the start-up phase of your business, you might decide to accept lower rates than you want because of other benefits – glowing testimonials, a strong portfolio and superb experience. All of those things can be used as USPs that can make you more attractive to better-paying clients further down the road – future leverage.

A client’s value cannot be measured purely by the fee it pays, especially when the editorial pro is starting out. I used to work with a publisher who put a shed load of work my way. I considered their rates low but the experience, volume of work, references and full schedule were worth every hour I spent on their books. I no longer work for them because I’m now visible enough that I get better-paying offers. I’m not critical of their fee structure (they have a business to run, too); instead, I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity they afforded me.​

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5. Do you think I’ll be able to find clients?

​Yes, if you’re prepared to be an active marketer.

Don’t wait – start thinking about your marketing strategy as soon as you can. Marketing is about being interesting and discoverable.

If you’re not interesting, it won’t matter who finds you because they won’t feel compelled to hire you. If you’re invisible, it won’t matter if you have a wardrobe full of USPs because no one will know you exist.

A good marketing strategy uses multiple promotional tools across multiple channels. That’s because different clients use different platforms to source us.

Those tools and channels are interconnected. The website you build, the useful content you share, the social media platforms you engage with, the directories you advertise in, the networking meetings you attend, the business cards you hand out, the CV you publish, the portfolio you build, the testimonials you acquire, the emails and letters you post, and more, should all be branded consistently so that clients and colleagues can recognize you and your editorial business.

​If you’re not ready to do what’s necessary to make yourself visible to good-fit clients, you’re probably not yet ready to run your own editorial business. There's nothing wrong with that. Some people are best suited to employment rather than self-employment.

If you think that word of mouth will be enough at the start of your editorial career, think again. I do have a few colleagues who’ve relied, successfully, on that but they’re few and far between, and they have a lot of experience (and clients to spread the word).

Being active puts you in a position where, over time, you acquire choice. Choice is the road to alignment – where what you need to earn, what you want to earn, how much time you have available to work for those earnings, and what the clients who can find you are prepared to pay all come together in a way that works for you and your business.
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6. What kind of information is relevant?

​It’s always about the client. When you’re creating content, put yourself in your client’s shoes and ask, ‘If I were searching for a proofreader, what would I want to know and what problems might I have?’

Some experts would say that my website has too many words and too many pages, that the portfolio is too cluttered, that there’s too much information below the fold, that my blog titles are too long ...

I do break some of the ‘rules’ of online promotion; I also follow many of them. I’ve tried and tested different ways of doing things and found what works for me. Next year, I might be doing things differently. Nothing’s set in stone.

If you’re struggling to organize your message, ask yourself the following questions. If the content you create answers them, you’re on the right track.

Who are you?

Who is the client?

What are their problems?

How can you solve them?

How can they contact you?

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7. But will it be lonely?

​If you’re still excited about building a freelance editorial business, then there’s an international community of colleagues waiting to welcome you.

​Thirty years ago, freelancing could be a lonely business. In 2017, independent proofreaders and copy-editors chat, ask for advice, share knowledge and expertise, and learn … together. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and editorial-society forums provide just some of the online spaces that editorial pros use to connect with each other.

We work solo but the digital watercooler has never been busier. See you there!